India to sell BrahMos Missile to Vietnam

New Delhi: From being world’s largest arms importer, India is seeking a slot among top arms exporters. India has stepped up efforts to sell an advanced cruise missile system to Vietnam and has at least 15 more markets in its sights.

Selling the supersonic BrahMos missile, made by an Indo-Russian joint venture, would mark a shift for the world’s biggest arms importer, as India seeks to send weapons the other way in order to shore up partners’ defences and boost revenues. “Policymakers in Delhi were long constrained by the belief that advanced defence cooperation with Washington or Hanoi could provoke aggressive and undesirable responses from Beijing,” said Jeff M. Smith, Director of Asian Security Programs at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.

The Indian government is also considering a proposal to offer Vietnam a battleship armed with the BrahMos missiles instead of just the missile battery.